**WARNING / DISCLAIMER**
This post includes descriptions of activities which may or may not be true, but are without a doubt in poor taste. Kids are known to exhibit poor taste even today in enlightened 2008, but in 1979 it was simply the way it was. Also, if you feel sympathetic toward slugs, or are easily nauseated, it is in your best interest to click here now and not read any further. Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs and mikeymix.com are hereby released from any responsibility for bad feelings induced by reading further. We mean it. If you read past the end of this sentence, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Still reading? Hope you're serious about this!! I mean seriously, the internet is full of things that you only WISH you could un-see, and what follows could fall into that category for many people, especially the whackjob environmental freakheads who often populate the geographical area in which the following may or may not have taken place. Last warning. Click here for an exit, or buckle up and continue reading.
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Okay... This post started its life as a comment left on this entry to my sister Susan's blog. Reading that post brought back memories that I'd long forgotten... I started writing a comment, and before I knew it, my comment was long enough to stand on its own as a post. However, as the warning above indicates, I'm a little bit uneasy with the content, and I'm certain that I would never do these things now, and my own kids would likely be in trouble if they ever pulled crap like this. So here is my response to Susan's thoughts on slugs.
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There was a magical two or three year period when I was an old enough kid to be trusted to go down to the fireworks stand alone, and light off my goods on my own, when the city/county/state overlords decided that firecrackers and bottle rockets could be legal... I think I was somewhere between 10 and 12, and those were the best summers of my childhood! My friends and I would ride our bikes down to the fireworks stand every day and load up on explosives, then spend the rest of the day blowin' stuff up.
Dad tried to keep it relatively harmless by building me a catapult to launch lit firecrackers, and it was fun... but not NEARLY as much fun as slipping a firecracker under a slug and lighting it up! We even got the added fear of "what if we get hit by the flying slug guts?" Luckily we never did. But we did find an even more delicious way of converting a cohesive slug into billions of slug particles...
Those big banana slugs have a hole in their heads.. breathing hole??? Portal to the demonic realm from which they come? Who knows.. but a ladyfinger could fit in that hole... and although the end result wasn't much different, blowing up a slug from the inside was just that much sweeter!
Gross, Cruel, totally out of step with the current slug-rights whackjobs populating the wet side in 2008, but 30 years ago it was the definition of summer fun.
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Okay. There it is. While I was writing it, not only did I realize that it was longer than your average comment, it got me reeling at the things I used to do as a kid that my kids today would NEVER be allowed to do. How quickly our society has changed! If you're over 30 and reading this, I'm guessing you have similar childhood memories. Maybe not the blowing stuff up part, but probably the going to the store on your own part... My mom used to give me money and send me down the hill to Albertson's for a loaf of French Bread for dinner... I just mapped it, and it was over half a mile each way, and the entire route was along the busiest streets in Des Moines. There were times that I'd wipe out on my bike, and walk it up the hill to our house with a bloody knee... But I never hesitated to hop back on and do it again!
What kind of crazy things did you do as a kid?? You can be TOTALLY HONEST here, I promise your mom's not reading!
Ha Ha Mike! It is Tuesday and your Mom is reading. She is horrified. See additional email for photo.
ReplyDeleteWhoops!! Oh well, I never said MY MOM wouldn't be reading, just that YOUR mom wouldn't be reading. And as long as you're not one of my siblings, that statement is true!
ReplyDeleteMy mom and dad gave me a car that had an engine that could do 110 in five seconds flat. What were they thinking. We had no law around either. We were 10 miles from school. I would drive at super high speeds and study my test. Crazy. My poor little brother. Our law was the neighbors all around. They would follow you home and tell your parents that their kid was going to fast. My stupidness always involved cars. Still does.
ReplyDeleteOnce a firecracker went up a friends nose. That was not good. It didn't go off. So we could really laugh about it, once she got it out. I better go, I could go on and on.....
Oh Mike I am so glad you extended your comment to a post! I am still laughing. Is it considered wrong in 2008 to even LAUGH at slug humor? It better not be. Do you remember when someone in the house, it might have been Janice came home with a slug cookbook? I loved that book, especially the one for drunken slugs where you put out a pie plate of beer and they willingly marinate themselves for supper. The one time I was really upset that Mom and Dad didn't drink. Well keep up the good humor and feel free to raid my blog for inspiration anytime!!!!
ReplyDeleteI think it was actually Brian that had the slug cookbook... And the recipe you mentioned was called "Beer Battered Slugs". You set out the plate of beer, let the slugs drink up, then smash them with a bat. Brilliant recipe!
ReplyDeleteHey Jan, my parents also entrusted me with a car that featured more speed than safety... Unfortunately, at the freeway intersection @ Vantage, I really could have used more safety as the brake pedal just hit the floor when I pushed it down, and I wound up buying a 10 foot section of guard rail... In fact, that happened when I was on my way to the Tri-Cities for the 4th of July weekend in 1985! Anniversary time! Wonder how my little guard rail is doing...
I was so caught up in the hilarity of it all I forgot this. When Barbara and Kathy and I were well and I do mean WELL under ten, this is when we lived at the old house on North Hill, Mom would give us a bit of spending money and let us walk probably a mile and a half down to the XL SUPER. It was such a long winding intricate path that sometimes we even got a little lost. Oh but there was nothing like the freedom of going into the ole XL and also the drugstore next to it, I can't remember it's name. We would load up on candy and other goodies and then somehow manage to find our 6,7 and 8 year old ways home. Those are some of my most cherished memories. And the fact that mom had six little girls and probably figured she could spare a few and that's why we were allowed, hardly matters.
ReplyDeleteOh man, my Mom is reading, so that kind of limits me. But I too remember that catapult that you could fling explosives with off the deck. And I seem to remember that Bruce would bring over the best explosives...ones that just might throw dirt on top of dear old Grandma......REEEEED!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI remember being like 9 and going with my friends to Nob Hill Market, or sometimes even riding our bikes to downtown Kennewick. I tuly believe that my generation was the last one that could enjoy freedom, and not have to worry about being kidnapped/raped/killed.
Yeah, Bruce being in the army had advantages this time of year!! There was one time that he brought home something that didn't have a fuse - instead it had wires on each end.
ReplyDeleteSo naturally, the easiest thing to do was cut the end off an extension cord, connect the wires to the "explosive device", connect it all to our "long yellow extension cord," run it out to the middle of the street, and then to protect (something?) we stuck a concrete drainpipe over it.
When we plugged in "Big Yella," that concrete pipe did the same thing as the banana slug I mentioned in this post... I'm shocked it didn't blast a hole in the middle of the road!
Funny how dear law-abiding, dripping with integrity Dad, would melt and jump right into the thick of it when fireworks and explosives were around. I think he had convinced himself that anything he considered a stupid law (say one that said NO BLOWING UP LIVE OR INANIMATE OBJECTS) was so ridiculous that it didn't deserve to be obeyed.
ReplyDeleteYou are too funny. I love all the warnings before reading.
ReplyDeleteI used to start fires in the field behind our house. Got the matches, lighted a fire and stomped it out. I knew it was wrong, but this was in England where bonfires are a huge part of neighborhood bonding.
You crack me up! I loved the links to PBS kids and My little ponies.
ReplyDeleteIs it terrible that I feel sorry for the slugs? I mean, they can't help it that they were born into such a circumstance....or maybe it's that there wasn't too much slug encountering in my childhood.
Great post. And as for your final sentence....I can't think of anything crazy that I used to do as a kid. I was a very obedient child.
Hmmmm.....think...think....no, can't come up with anything. I guess I had a very boring, adventureless childhood.
We are looking forward to seeing you all. And Cindy can definately hold that baby 90%of the time!
Donald mentioned Nob Hill. If we didn't ride our bikes we walked a short cut. Part of this short cut meant JUMPING over a VERY fast moving ditch. It was like white water rafting fast, or faster. It was about 4 feet wide I would guess. Maybe 31/2. I wouldn't jump at first. I would crawl up on the high wall that on the other side contained the very DEEP ditch water that was waiting to go out through the hole to the fast chute. So I would either crawl across or walk, like a balance beam. Donald and Travis, or anyone else with us, would just yell at me to stop being a big scaredy baby and jump. I eventually did. That was one of the most brave/stupid things I have done in my life. I think they eventually put up fences to stop people from going through there. It was much easier when the ditches were drained.
ReplyDeleteOh, I remember walking to the fireworks stand with Brian. I was disappointed with the selection that he would pick. So, he would just get me some smoke bombs and ground bloom flowers to make me happy. I didn't think blowing stuff up was that fun. I liked the pretty colors of fireworks. I know, such a girl.
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No, last time I checked, there was no fence around that little speedy water chute. I always loved jumping over that...what a rush!
ReplyDeleteGoing down hills on roller skates, having no idea how I was going to stop at the bottom - I think I usually used the curb or somebody's car. Nice, eh? Now I just ride around on the back of a Harley. Only slightly safer. :)
ReplyDeleteI was once abducted by aliens and taken to the planet Pluto where dogs ruled the planet and ice hockey was a universally popular sport.
ReplyDelete...
Okay, so that didn't happen to me, but I couldn't think of anything crazy that I did when I was 7-12 years old.
Donald I tell mom all my silly hijinks im to the age were she can't punish me just laugh
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